


Antichrist

by Artyphex



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Aged up Warlock, Crossover, Gen, I think that covers it, POV Warlock Dowling, Set in Season 1, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), This is using the book Gomens timeline btw, This wasn't supposed to get long, Warlock Reports Aziraphale and Crowley to the Magnus Institute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artyphex/pseuds/Artyphex
Summary: Statement of...Warlock Dowling...regarding his childhood caretakers. Original statement given May 31st, 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 171





	Antichrist

Statement of...Warlock Dowling...regarding his childhood caretakers. Original statement given May 31st, 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. 

Statement begins: 

\---

I wasn’t raised religious. I need to clarify that before I go into anything else to keep you from thinking “Oh, this kid was raised in one of  _ those  _ families. He only knows what  _ they  _ taught him.” I wasn’t. My dad carried around a bible but he was a politician trying to appeal to “a crowd,” and we celebrated Christmas but is that even a religious thing anymore? I wasn’t raised in a cult either. I’m aware my name throws people off. Whenever I get into this story, that’s always one of the questions. I’ve asked my mom about it and she claims she didn't  _ know  _ it meant  _ that  _ and was only going off of what a bunch of “very sweet nuns” recommended to her. 

I have yet to see any proof these nuns exist, by the way. 

So no, I wasn’t raised with any strange beliefs, other than whatever my father said to keep his place in politics, which I guess is a bit of a cult on its own. I  _ was  _ raised rich, that I’ll confess to. I know that you guys do background checks on whoever comes to you so I might as well lay it out for you: I was rich. I was the son of an American diplomat. I got everything I could’ve asked for, and my parents paid other people to raise me for them. 

That isn’t me asking for sympathy from strangers, that’s me telling you for the first ten years of my childhood, I have more memories of my nanny and our live-in gardener than I have either of my parents. They fed me, dressed me, tutored me, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t human. 

Do you have those childhood memories that, at the time, your child brain couldn't recognize as strange but then as you get older, you find yourself thinking "Hang on...what the Hell was that?" I get that a lot. I wasn't around other children much. I was homeschooled by my nanny and then afterward a small army of tutors until I finally left for Oxford and got a real healthy serving of reality shoved in my face. One of the first being that "Warlock" is not a name most people have heard before. I think this added to the not-weirdness of the situation. As far as I was concerned, every child had a nanny, and every nanny, as they tucked their employer's child into bed, sang to them about how they'll rule when the earth's destroyed. 

Sorry, I didn’t know how else to say it. That’s not an easy thing to spring on people. 

I vaguely remember my mother referring to her as "Mrs. Ashtoreth." I can't really give you more than that. I only ever called her "Nanny" and I don't remember if my mom ever got her first name. I doubt she even knew it, she was never one for getting friendly with "the help."

My nanny was, in practice, a normal nanny. She did things like take me to the zoo, watch me play in the park, make me crustless sandwiches for lunch, all of that. She’d just sprinkle in little details about how I was destined to destroy it all. Not in a bad way? She said it was something I should be looking  _ forward  _ to. The desolation of the entire world. She said that once it was all over and the dust had settled, I would be ruling wearing the crowns of the kings I had conquered. All while I was coloring on the floor, half-listening. 

My nanny… thought I was a demon child. The Antichrist. 

I know what you’re thinking and no, she did not say this because I was a chronically misbehaved child and she had an inclination towards theatrics. She always said it like she meant it. Like she was excited about it. It was always “Warlock, you are the Antichrist” and if she was feeling ceremonial that day she’d follow it up with a bunch of titles like “Great Beast Called Dragon, Destroyer of Kings, Dark Lord Sauron” or whatever.

I should make it clear that I don’t think I’m  _ actually _ the Antichrist. I’m certain  _ she _ thought I was. I could tell by the way she said it that she  _ believed _ it. Not in the way you're thinking. The way crazy people believe in crazy things. She didn't speak with any sort of conspiracy theory mania, everything she said to me was so calm. Every word was genuine. She wasn't trying to convince me of anything, she was stating a fact. Like she was telling me my hair is brown or there's a stain on my shirt. It makes me wonder if there's really an Antichrist out there and she was, I don't know, mixed up? 

But I guess there’s still time. 

Now. I know all of this is weird but it doesn’t actually mean my nanny wasn’t  _ human.  _ Maybe she was just your average, run of the mill devout Satanist. It’s possible, sure, but I have my doubts. 

My nanny herself was frightening in appearance. She had dark red hair that she wore in these styled, tight curls right out of the 1950s. I never saw her wear anything that wasn’t black or on the days she was feeling cheery, some shade of dark grey. She never once took off these small, ovular sunglasses. I remember asking her about it, and she told me in an amused tone that her eyes “tend to cause a ruckus” and she would “rather not deal with it during our walks.” 

She always wore these tall, snakeskin shoes. Polished black, with a glint of red between the scales. I think back on it now, and I realize I’ve never seen snakeskin look that- fresh. There’s always a dullness to them. Deadness. Like any leather. These weren’t like that. The shine, the richness of the colors on them looked like more than regular shoe polish could give. I’m not sure they were shoes. 

I haven’t even gotten to the gardener yet.

His name was Brother Francis. If I wasn’t with my Nanny, I was usually with him. My actual parents didn’t really come into the picture all that often. Busy people. He wasn’t hired with the express purpose of watching me, but any extra pair of eyes were appreciated I suppose. 

Francis was...you’ve seen Snow White right? The Disney one? You know that scene at the beginning where she’s at the well and sings and all those animals gather around her like a portable zoo? That was Francis. He was the opposite of Nanny Ashtoreth in every way. He wore white, for one, and despite his profession of kneeling in the dirt and picking weeds that white coat of his never carried any trace of dirt. His hair was short and this white blonde that would’ve looked fake on anyone else but I believe that was his real hair. Besides that the man looked ridiculous, his face was always sunburnt-red, he had these big buck teeth he could barely talk around. Not a threatening man. Not at all.

I say that like I was afraid of him. I wasn’t. I wasn’t afraid of my nanny either. I never thought to be. We tell kids that age that a fat old man with flying deer comes down the chimney every Christmas and a fairy comes in the middle of the night to steal our teeth. Why would I be afraid? Or maybe that’s the excuse I use to justify why none of this frightened me. I really don’t know. 

Anyway, I’d tell him all about the things Nanny would say to me. All about how I was meant to be this great prince of evil, and you know what he’d do? He’d tell me to be nice to flowers. I’m not kidding. Every moment I spent with him was a moment where he was teaching me how valuable life is, he named the slugs in the garden and made me greet each one whenever we spent an afternoon together. I’d tell Nanny about it later, and all she’d say was “Don’t listen to him, listen to me.”

I’d go back to him the next day and get the same, “Don’t listen to her, listen to me.”

Want to know the weirdest part? They were opposites in every way. The way they spoke, dressed, acted. The lessons they taught me. But I don’t think they hated each other. I think they  _ liked _ each other. There was always a fondness in their voices when they spoke of the other. I never actually saw them talk, but they clearly knew one other... I hadn’t given it too much thought until now. One more thing to add to the list. 

Between the two, I can’t say who was more strange. Francis never spoke about the end of the world but he wasn’t normal either. I’ve never seen a garden grow like that in my life. Tulips of every color, vibrant pink, sky blue, bright violet, the house was always covered in these flowering vines that were strong enough for me to climb on when my mom wasn’t looking. I slipped once, but I didn’t fall, the vine… placed me on the ground.

I remember one year we got this awful frost and my mother was convinced all the roses were dead. She was going on and on about how expensive they were and how ugly the outside of the house was- none of that meant anything to me obviously, a six-year-old experiencing a rare English snow day. I went out to play in the snow and there were the roses, not a flake of snow on them, red as anything. I went over and touched them. I swear to you those petals were warm. I looked over at the shed where Francis slept and saw him standing out there, and he  _ winked _ at me.

I wasn’t allowed in that shed, I still spend a lot of time wondering what was in there. 

But all of this I could try and excuse. Maybe it was a sequence of weird dreams or misremembered jokes that formed all this. I was a  _ child  _ after all. Seems about as believable as anything. But I know that’s not true. I know it. Because I found them. 

I've been looking for awhile. I needed to know if these people were real or made up by my lonely-child imagination. I started, naturally, by asking my parents about them. My father claimed he didn't remember anyone by either of those names working for us, but this didn't surprise me. Asking him was just a way of covering bases. If my mother didn't like to get close to the help, my father didn't like to acknowledge they existed. They were as relevant to him as the carpeting. But when I did ask my mother, she gave me a weird look. She said my Nanny's name was Mrs. Adams. She was an elderly woman with grey hair who wore a lot of purple and smelled like lavender and lemon soap. She also told me we never had a single constant gardener. It was always a team of people that showed up every few days or so to take care of the flowers and leave. That's how it's handled in the "modern-day" with a garden of that size. 

I don’t believe her. I don’t think she’s lying. I think she’s been lied to.

I did my own digging. I googled both names to find nothing. I called anyone I could think of. Agencies. Distant relatives. I even dug up some other staffers and rang them. No one knew what I was talking about. They either gave my mother's story or told me they didn't remember me  _ ever  _ having a nanny. 

I was, after a while of this, thinking that maybe it’s time to give up. Maybe I  _ had  _ dreamt it all. We all have those childhood memories we can’t tell are real, or dreams, or what someone told to you. Though I know mine isn’t that last one. 

Maybe I could’ve lived with the idea that I had imagined it all. Come to peace with it. Maybe, but I’ll never know. I never got the chance. 

It was maybe two weeks ago when I found myself alone in Soho. I can't really tell you why. I'm one of those guys that like to take long walks late at night, sometimes I lose track of how far I walk. 

I had just come to the realization that I had made it all the way to Soho and my flat was a good fifty-minute walk in the other direction and I had to be up early the next morning. I felt annoyed and went to turn around when my eyes fell on something in the distance. A shop. With the lights on. 

It was one or two in the morning, most places were closed and I wasn't really lonely enough to head into a late-night bar alone, but this wasn't a bar. There was no one inside, but the blinds were up and every light on. I could see, from where I was, what looked like shelves stacked with unorganized books. 

I didn't notice myself walking closer to it at first. I didn't feel as if I was being compelled by some unseen force, it was pure curiosity. No little shop like that is open this late and to be honest my life hadn't been that exciting since I graduated. I refused to be the son of a politician forever and my name doesn't exactly encourage employers. Sometimes I wonder why I never changed it. All this led to me really, really wanting to see what was in that store. 

I reached the window. I don't know if I intended to go inside. As I approached the shop I saw how empty it was and perhaps I could look through the window. I know how creepy this sounds but I wasn't intending to look for long. Window shopping isn't usually considered all that weird, the fact that I was alone in a black sweatshirt at one in the morning shouldn't have changed that much if you ask me. 

I didn't go inside, I reached for the door handle to find it locked, despite a sign that said "Open" and no one came to the door upon hearing the sound. I saw the shop was filled with shelves upon shelves of books. Old books. Big dusty things. Ranging anywhere from what looked like five-hundred-pound tomes, in both weight and value, sitting on those shelves to little more than loose stacks of yellow pages sandwiched between old slices of leather that could have at one point in history been a book cover. 

At first, it looked like my initial impression of the place was correct, I didn’t see anyone inside. I stepped back a bit, looking up, and saw a sign that read “A.Z Fell and Co. Bookseller.” I did not recognize the name A.Z Fell and I’d never been one for books, especially the books it looked like this place sold. I was about to walk away and begin my walk back home, and it was at that moment I saw it. Saw him. Francis. 

He was towards the back of the store, partially obscured by a shelf. But there he was. He didn’t look like I remembered but there was no mistaking it. Unless you’ve seen Francis you probably wouldn’t understand but the man gives off a very specific vibe. The way he holds himself. The way he moves. It’s all very- personalized to Francis. He was wearing white, it was much fancier than anything I’d ever seen him wear as he worked as my gardener but it was still completely spotless despite all the dust of the place around him. He had the same, short, white-blonde hair and was holding a glass of red wine in one hand. While looking down at an ancient tone open in his lap.

I noticed he had what looked to be some sort of thick black shawl around his shoulders. The hand that wasn't holding the glass was on the shawl, gingerly moving up and down the fabric, only taking his hand off to turn a page in his book. It was so strange, it didn't suit him at all, it didn't seem to be even covering him all that much and even so, it wasn't like it was cold. My eyes settled on it, and I noticed it wasn't entirely black, there were a few hints of a deep red woven into a pattern over the shawl. Like a fishnet or scales.

Scales. 

As the word entered my mind, the whole thing  _ moved.  _ It slithered over Francis’ shoulders and he calmly kept his hand on it, stroking the sales as they ran under his palm, the-  _ thing _ wrapped around his middle once, and Francis seemed completely unafraid. I even saw a small smile on his lips form, and they moved slightly as if he was whispering something. 

That’s when I saw it.

From over one of Francis’ shoulders, emerged a  _ head.  _ A snake-like head as big as a dinner plate. A wine-colored forked tongue shot out of its mouth and it opened its jaws in what looked like a pleasant yawn. Its teeth were- exactly as big as you imagine. 

But it was nothing compared to its eyes. 

Massive, round, orange things. They were the color of fire. Outlined with this blood-red that slowly faded into a blinding yellow around a slitted pupil. And it  _ saw  _ me. And it recognized me. It knew  _ exactly  _ who I was and knew  _ exactly  _ that I knew now. I  _ know  _ now. 

I made it back to my flat in a little over thirty minutes. 

I don't know what I want from you. I don't know if I want answers or the catharsis of writing it all down or to have a chance of telling someone who might believe me. So there it is. I'm not lying. I was not raised in a cult. And I'm not afraid of snakes.

\---

Statement ends. 

Well, this is a new one. Given Mr. Dowling's descriptions of his childhood, I find it hard to believe this is anything more than a neglected child's desire for attention spread into adulthood. Telling stories about how your nanny raised you to be the Antichrist only to be thwarted by a gardener she had an...unclear relationship with is certainly one way to do that. 

I realize Mr. Dowling said he looked into the existence of Mrs. Ashtoreth and Brother Francis himself, but I like to be thorough and understand that most of the general public does not have the resources of the institute. Sasha looked into multiple agencies providing childcare services to high-income families and none said they had a "Mrs. Ashtoreth" in their current employ nor in any of their past records. Nor did she find a "Brother Francis" employed at any prominent lawn care services or offering service freelance. 

I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of recording this statement at all if it hadn’t been for, of all people, the findings of Martin. This “A.Z Fell and Co.” establishment does in fact exist in the Soho shopping center. According to Martin, it is indeed a secondhand bookstore specializing in the collecting and selling of historical books. Martin said that Mr. Fell matches the description from the statement perfectly, and while he did not see him with any sort of black shawl or large reptile around his shoulders, he did spot a red-headed individual with dark clothing, and sunglasses, lingering in the back of the shop. He said he wasn’t able to speak with them, and regardless I doubt the two are in any way related. 

Martin told me he spent a good amount of  _ institute  _ time pleasantly discussing poetry with Mr. Fell and getting his recommendations. However, once he attempted to actually purchase one of the old tomes of dry poems, Mr. Fell became suddenly hostile. Refusing to sell any of the books on the shelves and Martin ended up leaving empty-handed. 

Martin insists that despite the man’s odd demeanor, he at no point felt he wanted to cause him harm and that I “worry too much about these kinds of things” but I have plenty of reasons not to trust old men who are overly enthused in their collections of old books.

Recording ends. 

**Author's Note:**

> I saw someone say "Someone should write a fic where Warlock reports Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis to the Magnus Institute" on Tumblr and lost control of my body and this happened. I come back after 84 years with my first crossover fic cause why not I guess. 
> 
> This is meant to be season 1 Jon reading. I realize the timeline was weird, this more or less goes off of the book's timeline where the apocalypse occurs in 1998, meaning Warlock is 24 when he gives his statement. This was done so that it could fit into season 1 Magnus canon! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!


End file.
